Losing a mate

Monday

Jan 31, 2011 at 3:15 AM

I lost my glove. I've been looking for it. I know I won't ever find it. I have other gloves, many socks and earrings that I've been looking for the mates for some time. It takes a long time for me to give up on them. I keep on looking for them until I forget. One seems so useless; if I can just find the other, they will be whole again and ready to be useful again.

If I had lost my glasses, a key or an ATM card, I'd do something about replacing them immediately, but when I lose a mate to a pair of anything, I keep looking. I am wondering now, are most things in pairs made for our body? Gloves, shoes, socks, earrings, crutches, skis, skates, pajamas, slacks . . . pair of slacks? That says it all. It seems that most things in pairs are intimate.

What is it with pairs that we cannot reconcile to losing a mate? Is it like our marriages? After so many years, do we become such a pair that we seem like one? When we lose our mate, we no longer seem as whole? Would we wear one glove out to dinner or the movies? Would one glove keep us warm? Would one glove protect our fingers? It never seems easy to compensate for that loss. I sometimes think I am still looking for my mate, still feel the loss of my husband. This January, it's been 13 years, for crying out loud! Yet I still feel like part of me is missing. I doubt that I am alone thinking like this.

I have just been sharing with others their recent losses of their beloved spouses. I know how much it hurts. I know the stages of grief. So many of us do, yet we are all individuals and just because it is a reality we all must face, when it hits us, it hurts us the most.

We know it takes a team to get most jobs done. The male has his important role: the lawn, the snow, the roof, the fuses, the car, the ladder work and the female, hers: the decorating, cooking, entertaining, gift giving, letters, caregiving. And there are roles they share - incomes, bills, savings and loans, family decisions and responsibilities, major purchases, medical, opinions, estate planning, entertainment. It's difficult for the male to cook a meal and for the female to put in the air conditioner but we must do all now that we are one.

The other glove is gone, goodbye. But I miss it. It may show up in July.

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